Such a hand truck with an adjustable wheel axle is known from the American patent document U.S. Pat. No. 5,118,124. The adjustable wheel axle is set into operation after the load plate of the hand truck has been loaded and must then be tilted to enable movement thereof. The axle suspension for the adjustable wheel axle comprises an array of three mutually pivoting sections, wherein the pivot point between the second and third section is formed by the wheel axle. In unloaded state the third section of the axle suspension is locked so that the wheel axle is held in a rest position, and the adjustable wheel axle is set into operation by unlocking this section.
During tilting of the hand truck the adjustable wheel axle makes a movement to the rear and then toward the main frame so that during the first stage of tilting a corner edge of the load plate and the main frame maintains contact with the ground The corner edge then moves clear of the ground and the hand truck supports on tilting blocks on the low rear side of the main frame until the wheel axle supports against the rear side of the frame in an end position. With this hand truck a considerable reduction is achieved in the force required by a user to tilt a heavy load to a position in which it can be moved.
A drawback of this hand truck is that the axle suspension has a complicated design, a locking is necessary, and tilting blocks are required in order to load the sections only after the wheel axle has reached the end position.